Riese and Restaurant Union Accept Contract After 3 Years

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Published: January 25, 1999

About 450 workers at Charley O's, Lindy's and several other Manhattan restaurants run by the Riese Organization have ended a three-year labor dispute by agreeing to a contract that includes long-sought job-security provisions.

Ending one of the city's longest labor disputes, Riese promised the unionized waiters and kitchen workers that if the company closed a restaurant, the laid-off workers would get hiring preferences at other unionized Riese restaurants.

The contract covers 18 Riese restaurants, a small fraction of the more than 200 restaurants that Riese runs in the city.

The union, Local 100 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, had been at loggerheads with Riese since January 1996, when the old contract expired. One of the sticking points was the union's demand for job security in light of Riese's practice of closing unionized restaurants, laying off workers and then opening new nonunion restaurants at the same site.

Henry J. Tamarin, Local 100's president, called that a tactic to undermine the union's base. But Dennis Riese, the company's president, said Riese (pronounced REESE) was replacing outmoded restaurants.

Under the new contract, Mr. Tamarin said, if Riese closes a unionized restaurant and opens a new one at that site, it will also be unionized. Mr. Riese said, ''This new contract represents a dual victory both for the union and the Riese Organization.''

The contract was an important step for a union that has been one of the most aggressive in backing low-paid workers and in organizing nonunion workers in New York City.

Riese and the union agreed to the contract last week -- and union members ratified it -- after the union urged politicians to pressure Riese, held demonstrations at Riese restaurants and released embarrassing information about the company. The union publicized the many times health inspectors cited Riese restaurants for having rats and other vermin. Riese settled the dispute three weeks after The New York Post ran a photo of a mouse eating a doughnut in the window of a Riese Dunkin' Donuts shop in Manhattan.

Throughout the dispute, the union did not call a strike, fearing its members would be permanently replaced by strikebreakers.

The contract provides an 11.5 percent raise over four years for the kitchen staff and other workers who generally earn $5.50 to $9 an hour and do not get tips. There is a 7.5 percent raise over four years for workers compensated with tips, like waiters, whose basic wage is $3.14 an hour before tips. The union had sought retroactive pay for three years, but settled for nearly eight months of retroactive pay for workers who do not get tips and nearly five months for workers who do.

The union has also been trying to unionize 120 workers at Riese's fast-food restaurants in Pennsylvania Station, which are mostly franchise operations. The union had demanded that Riese recognize the union there because most of the workers had signed union authorization cards. But Riese insisted on an election, saying that union leaders could twist workers' arms to sign such cards.

Under the contract, Mr. Tamarin said, Riese will agree to such card-check recognition at its nonfranchise restaurants. But at its franchise operations, Riese will still insist on elections for union representation. The new contract states that if workers at a franchise restaurant vote for a union, they will be covered by the agreement.

Mr. Tamarin said, ''This was tremendously significant for us because in the nonunion restaurants, the workers get no benefits -- no paid holidays, no paid vacation, no free health insurance. Their lives will improve right away if they join the union.''